


names like tombstones

by astahfrith



Category: Destiny (Video Games)
Genre: (in case it wasn't clear what happened to Jaas), (mentioned) - Freeform, Fireteam (Destiny), Gen, Grief/Mourning, Implied Relationships, Mercy Killing, Past Violence, Suicidal Thoughts, The Red War (Destiny), and it is not going to get better anytime soon, in fact it is soon going to get much worse, rahel is in a real bad place when they get to the Farm, sorry bby
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-08-11
Updated: 2020-08-11
Packaged: 2021-03-06 05:54:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25838386
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/astahfrith/pseuds/astahfrith
Summary: If Rahel says it, then it will become real. Just another fact of this nightmare: the Red Legion has invaded, they have lost their Light, they are alive, and Jaas is --Rahel arrives at the Farm with one fireteam member dead and four unnaccounted for.
Relationships: Guardian & Ghost, Guardian & Guardian (Destiny), Guardian & Suraya Hawthorne, Nonbinary Guardian & Female Guardian, Nonbinary Guardian & Male Guardian, Nonbinary Guardian & Nonbinary Guardian
Kudos: 5





	1. one

Rahel finally stops three days after they escape from the City. It's not as far as they would have liked, but even with Zanna healing them, there's only so far adrenaline can take them. They collapse at the base of a tree and stare blankly at the patches of dusky sky peeking through the leaves above them. The first stars are coming out, though they’re flickering and hazy from the distant fires in and around the City.

They should get up: eat something, check the comms, scout the area, do _anything_ , but weariness is crashing over them like a tidal wave, insurmountable. They let their eyes drift closed for a moment, trying to ignore the memories painted on the inside of their eyelids.

Rahel hears the sound of Zanna transmatting in as they sit there, and after a moment they feel her float down to rest in the hollow of their shoulder, a comforting weight. They bring a hand up to rest against her. She’s quiet. She’s been quiet except for necessity since they escaped, since -

\- well, since.

“Zanna?” they say into the silence eventually, voice rough.

“...yes, Rahel?” she asks, soft.

“I’m sorry,” they whisper, tipping their head against her shell. “You’re not useless. You never have been.”

Rahel remembers snarling that at her in the midst of it all, and the guilt is, as expected, suffocating.

Zanna is quiet for what feels like an age. “But I was,” she says, finally, and her voice is so small that it makes them sit up straight, drawing her away from their shoulder to cup her between their hands. Her projections are flickering rapidly in distress. “Jaas - Willa - I couldn’t do _anything_. If I could’ve - you wouldn’t have had to -“

They clutch her tighter at the reminder, and she falls silent again, except for a small trill of grief that’s painful to listen to. 

The memories press close for a moment, smoke and rubble and blood on their hands. Jaas’s eyes on them, dull and empty. Willa’s shell in so many still, dark pieces on the ground. Rahel has been trying very hard not to think about it. It’s part of why they didn’t stop for three days, as though they could outrun the memories. It takes immense effort to push them away now, but they manage it, if only because they can’t afford to break down in the middle of the wilderness, surrounded by enemies.

“No one could have done anything, Zanna. Not you. ...Not me,” they finally say, hollow, reluctant. “What’s done is done. I have to live with it. I don’t blame you.”

“You shouldn’t blame yourself either,” she says immediately. They laugh, because that’s Zanna, protective to the end, even from themselves. It cracks in the middle.

“Easier said than done,” they say. _Especially when I’m the one who pulled the trigger_ , they don’t say, but it sits in the space between them anyway, heavy. 

“Jaas wouldn’t want you to,” she says quietly, sad. “Or Willa.”

“...I know,” Rahel says, barely audible. “I know. But I - “ They break off. She trills again, and they pull her into their chest, resting their cheek against her shell, squeezing their eyes shut against the darkening skies and the empty ache in their chest. “Have you heard anything from the others?” they ask.

Rahel knows she would have told them if she had, but still.

“Nothing since that last message from Saasraa and Cen,” Zanna says.

“They probably just don’t want to risk it,” she continues, clearly trying for optimism. “Thayne’s in the Reach, right? The comms out there are patchy, and they’ll take a while to get back anyway, if they’re being their usual paranoid self. Not that I’d blame them for the paranoia in this case. And Ruse and Rime were in the City too, they’ll be in a similar situation to us.”

“...probably,” Rahel says. _If they made it out alive,_ they don’t say, thinking of who _didn’t_ , and let out a slow, pained breath. They’re still tired, but...“Let’s keep moving,” they say, and climb heavily to their feet. It’s hard. They can tell Zanna wants to protest, wants them to stop and rest, but they can’t. There are too many things chasing them, least of all the Red Legion. 

The urge to run outweighs the urge to rest. So they start running again, and do their best not to look back.


	2. two

Rahel goes to see the woman the guards called Hawthorne first thing in the morning. They slept deeply, thankfully too exhausted to dream, but they didn’t feel rested when they woke. There’s a seemingly permanent knot of almost nausea settled at the base of their throat, and a glance at their reflection in the tiny broken down fountain tells them that they look it too.

Muscle memory nearly has them attempting to jump up to Hawthorne’s platform, before they remember. They could climb it, if they wanted, but they don’t think that’s going to endear them to the woman standing sentinel atop it. They find the stairs and climb them slowly, feeling like they’re climbing to the executioner's block.

Hawthorne is chattering softly to her hawk when they crest the last step. She immediately turns to face them. It takes a moment, but then recognition dawns, along with the faintest trace of a grimace that is quickly smoothed away. 

Rahel had gotten the sense from their brief interaction with the patrol that a good number of the non-Guardians at the Farm aren’t all that fond of Guardians in general, Hawthorne included. Honestly, it just exhausts them.

“Hey, you’re the one who wandered in in the middle of the night, aren’t you?” the woman asks, raising an eyebrow.

Rahel nods, allowing themselves to look a little chagrined. “That’s me. Sorry for the scare I gave your security patrol. I’m Rahel.”

“Well, no one got shot, so I supposed we can call it bygones,” she says, shaking her head. “Suraya Hawthorne, and I hope you don’t mind if I don’t say nice to meet you. You Guardians always seem to end up in more trouble than you’re worth, and it feels like a shitty thing to say under the circumstances, anyway.”

Rahel snorts. “Well, at least you’re honest,” they say.

Suraya quirks her lips at them briefly. “I try. Anyway, you can keep the tent you slept in, and you can grab a kit of basic supplies in a few. And if you could fill this out -“ she offers them a tablet and they take it. “ - it would be real appreciated. We need all the help we can get, Guardian or not.”

Rahel skims the form on the tablet. It’s pretty straight forward - name, affiliation, combat skills and specializations, non-combat skills - “ they swallow hard. Names of people they know, or would like to know, the status of.

“There -“ they swallow again, not taking their eyes off that stark line of text. “Is there a list? Of - of peoples’ statuses.”

They look up and Hawthorne is looking at them with something a little darker and sadder in her eyes. 

“Yeah,” she says. “You were a warlock, right? Couple of your buddies,” she continues when Rahel nods, ignoring the bite in their chest at the past tense. “Added that bit when they got here. Was a good idea, we started one for the civilians too. They get updated every couple of days or so. Fill that out and get your supplies, and then you can take a look, okay?”

Rahel nods, swallowing again around the knot in their throat, and when Hawthorne doesn’t stop them, they take a seat on the edge of the platform to fill the form out. It goes fairly quickly, until the last two boxes. They skip immediately to the last one, which is people they want to know the status of. They type in “Saasraa, hunter,” first, with a note about where and when they last saw her. Then most of the rest of their fireteam. Ruse-7, warlock, Rime-7, Titan, Thayne, hunter, with additional notes about their last locations known to Rahel.

Then finally they pause, take a deep breath, and make themselves look at the second to last box. Guardians they know the status of. Rahel wonders why they put it like that. Really, the only people it makes sense to write there are people you know are are -

They can’t quite think the word, even now. But there’s nothing else for it. They breathe in again, short, sharp, and start to type.

Except Rahel can’t even get past the _J._ The memories well up again, like a tide; the smoke and the rubble and the distant explosions around them, the sidearm in their hand, the blood on their robes and their arms and the ground -

A jab to their shoulder brings them back before they can go too deep, and they flinch. “Hey,” Hawthorne says from above them, but without real heat. “Don’t break my tablet.”

Rahel pauses, and then breathes out again, long and harsh. They force themselves to loosen their grip, but that’s all they manage. When they don’t immediately seem inclined to move otherwise, Hawthorne leans down and takes the tablet from them. Rahel lets her, and stares at the ground below the platform as she skims the information.

“Huh,” she says. “Pretty spry for a warlock, aintcha?”

They do something like shrug, still trying to get their breathing under control. Hawthorne keeps reading.

Finally, she must get to that box. When she speaks again, her voice sounds just a little gentler. “Name?” She asks.

_Empty eyes_ \- “Jaas,” they say through gritted teeth, and spell it. “Titan, Order of the Lost Saint. Ghost, Willa.”

They listen to her tapping fingers as though from far away.

“Status?” she asks eventually, as though it isn’t obvious. But if Rahel says it, then it will become real. Just another fact of this nightmare: the Red Legion has invaded, they have lost their Light, they are alive, and Jaas is -

“Dead,” they say, before they can get lost in their head again. It still hits like a punch to the gut, all the air gone out of their lungs, leaves them shaking all over, static spreading through their brain.

Hawthorne is kind enough to give them a minute to pull themselves together a little before she speaks again. _Breathe, Rahel,_ Zanna whispers through their link. They close their eyes and try their best to do as she bids, breathing in as deep and slow as they can, and then out, trying to let the memories drain out with the air. It doesn’t feel like it really works, the static only getting louder, but Hawthorne apparently eventually deems them calm enough.

“Anyone else?” she asks.

Rahel is grateful that she doesn’t say she’s sorry, but they need to be done with this conversation now. 

“No,” they say, short. 

There are a few tapping sounds. “...Thank you for the information,” Hawthorne says finally. “That’s all I need for now. You can go get some supplies in the hangar now. Stop by after and I’ll tell you if the other names flagged a match.”

“Alright,” they say, numb. “Thank you.” Rahel can’t get out of there fast enough. They make the jump from the platform to the ground, the adrenaline spike drowning out everything else for a second.

Hawthorne lets out an aborted curse. “Guardians,” she mutters loudly. “Showoffs even without their Light.”

Rahel really can’t bring themselves to care what she thinks of them right now. That said, they make themselves head for the hangar. But they won’t be going back to her to see if any of the others’ names came up. Not today. Right now the urge to run is creeping into their limbs again. Stubborn and a coward to the very end, that’s them. Maybe they’ll just keep running, until they find the Legion, or the Legion finds them. Whichever happens first.

But they won’t. Jaas asked them to make it through this. The last thing he ever asked of them, and Traveler be damned if there isn’t a small part of Rahel that wants to hate him for that, for knowing them so well.

_Tomorrow_ , they tell themselves viciously. _You’ll go back to Hawthorne tomorrow. You’ll find out about the others, and you’ll go from there._

That decision made, Rahel keeps walking. One foot after the other. 

It’ll have to be enough.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter will be the events of Jaas's death, which is where the Graphic Depictions of Violence tag will come into play. Please mind it! Also this story is now going to be 4 chapters, maybe. The title after all, is names, plural. :)))

**Author's Note:**

> Whomst is this? A multichapter OC fic? Sorcery! Nah really I just had 3 ficlets lying around in various stages of almost finished so I started tidying them up and decided to post them together. This is Rahel, my first Destiny OC, my beautiful Warlock child, the one I acually play in the game. They're pretty young as Guardians go, only a few decades, so the Red War is one of he first major conflicts they have a significant personal involvement in and...well. It doesn't go super great. Jaas is...was...their best friend. Their relationship as of late was...complicated, and yes there was more there but it was never acted on by either of them which was part of the problem. Unfortunately, too late now. The final chapter of this will be the actual events of Jaas's death in detail. I could say the order was purposeful for the Drama, but really it's just because that one is less close to finished and I wanted to post the first two. SO.
> 
> Hope you enjoyed, please be gentle with my child they've gone through enough.
> 
> Title from Saying Your Names by Richard Siken.


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